Oddbean new post about login | logout Although I don't agree with the core of the article, I understand that it feels weird to interact with weird pictures as their avatars and non-human names all day, it makes everything look artificial and broken. I just wanted to point that on Nostr it would be very simple to have a "verified human" badge thing issued by some trustworthy organization attached to people that want to ensure everybody else they are human (and not just using some fake human name and picture as people could do too).
I don't think having such a thing would be a slippery slope and lead the entirety of Nostr to the KYC world. That would require non-human people to have their "protocol rights" restricted, like they're doing now on X.
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And while I would *encourage* ditching the anon handles, I would never want to require it, or do what Elon is doing.
It feels a bit weird, but that’s not my main complaint (though IMO NOSTR would grow a lot faster were there more real names attached.) My main complaint is that while private communications and life details should remain private, public square posts should be with names attached to the extent we want a robust public square and to beat back censorship. And yes, it’s true anyone can pose as a real-life person while faking it, but I’m more talking about nyms who are obviously real people and encouraging them to post under their real names. The issue of verifying that is separate, though obviously important in that case. I love the platform, BTW — just think now that we have this freedom tech, it’s the time to stand up for the courage of our convictions in the open.
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What makes any name less real than another? Reputation and respect can be built and attached to any name. Security and cryptographic verification of accounts is far more important.
I posted about it. In real-life reptuational risk adds skin in the game. But more importantly it sends the message that the censors are wrong, and you’re willing to stand up (with that real life skin in the game) for what you believe. Nyms undermine that because you’re only willing to say it under the condition it can never get back to you.
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I will reiterate my same comment again. Reputation can be attached to any name. And with real money and value attached to any account the skin in the game is just as real but with the added advantage of better op sec. We are at war on multiple fronts and there are plenty of advantages to having multiple names in all of them
Yes, I get it, but having real skin in the game (the state knows who you are) makes your dissent much more powerful than if you are only saying it while invisible and unaccountable. How many followers you have is small potatoes, especially when the reason you got those followers was from dissenting anyway.
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The state doesn’t need to know who we are for us to undermine them. And In fact it only takes them loosing account and control over a small percentage to bring it all down. This doesn’t even require any posting, just individual action. And btw we are way later in the game than you think
You might be right that we’re late in the game, and it’s teetering, but one way it would collapse for sure is if millions of people in regular jobs just told the truth as they see it rather than pretending to go along.
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This sounds like it’s framing nostr (like many have with Twitter before) as largely a platform for political discourse. Much talk on this platform has nothing to do with spouting beliefs or political agendas. Many here talk about their computer setups, running nodes and relays, the lightning network, 3D printing, and other hobbies/endevours. Some do so in places where it’s not legal/acceptable. Others, like myself, simply do not owe the world the right for our personal tech infrastructure to be doxed. We’re also not talking about a centralized platform, but an open protocol, that if scales and succeeds, the features and freedoms of one’s npub/nsec traversing the internet, now forever tied with a “real ID” in your argument, is a double-edged sword with potentially frightening consequences.
Yes, I used to have an anon handle on Twitter to ask technical questions too. I didn’t use it as a substitute for my political opinions (though I did occasionally slip into posting some there for a minute.) There are times and places for it (as I stated clearly in the post). And yes, I’m talking about social media as the public square. In that case I think most people should speak up about things under their own names and be counted. Ironically the entire reason why there’s some risk in having your views out there with your name attached is that fewer people are willing to do it. I’d like to see this risk reversed by everyone posting as though it was their right. Because it is.
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The internet’s a big place out there. I don’t need someone sending a swat team to my house because they don’t agree with something I said. Using a real name puts a disproportionate amount of power in an attacker’s hands.
At the individual level that’s true, but hiding behind anon handles puts the power in their hands at scale. It means we’ve agreed we can’t speak our minds openly.
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I speak my mind openly in meatspace, too. There’s a big difference between engaging in meatspace and engaging online and the risks inherent in each.
Right, my point is if you take the risk of doing so online, it’s a personal one. If you avoid the risk, it’s a societal one. In the unlikely event the state wants to get you, it will. But if no one speaks out under their name, we will have a state so empowered, it will usher in a dystopia for everyone. That’s why one *should* take the risk now while it’s still relatively small in many places. That’s the gist of the post.
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The state has enough resources it could deanonymize me through countless means. I am not so naive as to think that’s what I’m doing. This is more to protect myself from some bored internet rando who decides to harass me or my loved ones, or a retroactively-applied rule about what is socially acceptable to say. I appreciate your candor and civility. Hopefully I’m not adding to a dogpile for you.
One of my gripes is seeing people try nostr and give up because they don't find anyone they know posting. They have friends on here, but can't find them because they're hiding behind nyms.
Wait, but why don't their friends tell them what their nym is?
That would be bad opsec
That’s a 150 iq move
80 IQ pleb here 🫡
Haystacks
Why don't we, ourselves, verify each other? People who we know personally and know they Nostr profiles. Also users who we do not know but follow and have read a whole bunch of their notes, and we see others are interacting with them. The more verifications a user has the more genuine his account is. For example, we all could now verify your account because we can acknowledge your identity, and you can be the first person verified. Than you start verifying other users and so on. We will build a verification network whish is transparent, a spider web of interactions. Of course, we need a verification button for that reason. Births, marriages, deaths all had witnesses for ages, and for the same reason to verify the event or person. And, why our digital identity has to be the same as our government ID? This probably has advances and limitations but could be worked on.
I am firmly against any type of verification even by friends. It makes it seem as if verified person’s note carries any more credibility than anon, it doesn’t.
I mean isn’t that what nostrocket spaceman is? https://nostrocket.github.io/spaceman/
I do think badges are the perfect solution for this. Verify whatever you want, issued by whomever. One-off pubkeys could also be used to prevent people from correlating badges about a single person. Also, private badges?
i'm quite curious about how to make a keychain for identity, since this can dramatically strengthen the security of the signatures. i never did read up on how xpubs work, maybe i need to look at this soon. i'm working on a keychain right now, and this would be an opportunity to establish a method to do this with nostr.
I'm current working on this, and published a nostr-access-control library (https://github.com/neilck/nostr-access-control) as a proof of concept. As I work through the front-end app through, that library will probably change. 1. When applying for a group membership badge, a user must have all the required admission badges, including a "not-a-bot badge" issued by an web app running Captcha. 2 When using a Nostr app, app can promote notes and other content from people who share the same membership badges. We fight spam by promoting the relevant content versus trying to surpress the negative content.